All I Do Is Hope
by Nothing more and nothing less
Summary: This is some characters reflecting on the changes and how it changed Panem and each other. Probably unrelated one shots and different POVs. I don't own anything.
1. Somebody Help Me Through This Nightmare

Katniss doesn't sleep at night. Katniss doesn't sleep in the morning. Katniss doesn't sleep. She nods off for ten minutes, and then wakes up, damn near close to forcing her teeth through her bottom lip to stop herself from screaming.

I wouldn't mind if she screamed. If she did something. She sits, and stares into the fire, and when the clock hits 10 at night, she goes upstairs and repeats the process of nodding off, having nightmares, not screaming and then staring into nothing. Then at sunrise, or when sunrise in the middle of summer would be, she has a shower goes downstairs, and then does nothing.

I'm worried about Katniss. It can't be healthy for her to keep it in. At least she doesn't give herself alcohol poisoning every night. She just sits and stares. I watch her a lot, especially when she sleeps. For a few precious minutes, she sleeps peacefully, but after that. That's when she starts struggling, thrashing around, and talking. I always watch her eyes. Even though I can't see her eyes, I watch. I've seen her eyelids snap open, and when they do, she has so much fear and pain in her eyes. If she's seen me looking, Katniss makes a point to look away.

I don't know if she realizes that she talks in her sleep, but I'm not going to tell her. It's the only time she talks. It hurts that she doesn't talk to me, especially because she knows that I've been there with her for most of her life. I've even saved it a few times, and she still doesn't talk to me?

I wonder what messed her up so much. So much that she can't sleep, and won't talk wheb she's conscious and barely eats. I think she needs to see a therapist. But not the one she had before. Maybe it should be him though, because she seemed to be getting better. But that was when she didn't speak, right after the whole kill Coin thing. The therapist that she had then said that she killed Coin because Katniss was grieving.

God, I'm such an idiot! That was nearly a year ago, give or take a week. I know Katniss saw Prim die, apparently Prim was helping injured Capitol children. I don't know if, or how Prim got there because she was only 13. Katniss blames Gale for it, but I don't know why- whenever I ask about it she shuts down. They had a really big argument- Katniss went crazy, and screamed her throat raw at him. And Gale just stood and took it. He started crying when she mentioned 'gift bombs'.

I think that Katniss is an empty shell at the moment, forced to live her own memories again and again. It's almost as if she's hijacking her own memories. I don't want to know if her memories really are that bad. I just want to help her.

I don't understand why she won't let me help her. Is being in debt, not that it would affect me, really that bad to her? I mean she helped me- if Katniss really wants to look at it that way, I'm in debt to her. I just want to know what's troubling her.

I won't say that there's something wrong with her, because there isn't. It's her mind that has the problem. I know what it's like being in her position, or I like to think I do. I never saw any of my family members die, and I know they're all dead, so I can't really be abandoned by a dead family. There's only one person that I've ever felt as protective about anyone as she was with Prim.

Maybe that's why it hit Katniss so hard. She mothered Prim so much, that it became instinctual. Who the hell am I kidding? I'm no doctor, not a therapist either, but she needs help.

But even after thinking about it so much, and trying to explain her actions, God knows I've come up with so many theories, I think that she's still grieving. Maybe it's not just for Prim. Maybe it's for Rue, Thresh, even Cato. Sometimes I think it might be the 'little girl in the lemon yellow coat' that she talks about sometimes.

And sometimes I don't want to know. I don't want anything except her to be happy. Is that really too much to ask for? Considering all we've been through, I really think that she's owed this. Through her weird debt system, the debts she has with life should really just let her have a better life than she is right now.

I wonder if Snow knows that they Games had this effect on people, whether they won or lost. If you won, you have to deal with the fact that you've murdered innocent children, cause when we go into to the Games, that's all we are. Kids. And then kids leave either in a body bag or with other kids' blood on their hands. Sometimes both. Everyone wonders if it's really that bad for Haymitch, because I seem to be coping fine, and Katniss was always a tidge messed up.

But it's bad for me, and there were only 23 others, 22 if you look at it winners vs. losers. And then there were the 75th Games. I don't want to be a part of this. I wish I could just leave. Maybe leave life. Leave everything behind. Leave the memories, the grief, the fame. Everything. But I don't think I could survive without Katniss. I hope if I do ever leave, it might be positive for her. Maybe I remind her of the Games. I was the only one present in both of them that's around her constantly. Haymitch visits when he can.

Haymitch understands the stress of the Games, and feeling resposible for other people's deaths. He was a mentor for a while, as well as a tribute. But he didn't go through 2 games. He wasn't there. He saw it, experienced- but so did all of the Capitol. We were there, in the middle of it, all the freaking time. It just gets annoying sometimes, especially when people think that they know Katniss or I. They saw us at our worst. When we killed people and we didn't stop.

I know it was hard for Katniss when we were in District 4, when that young girl said that she wanted to volunteer, like she did. The girl looked about Prim's age. It was surprising that she carried on normally during the rest of District 4- if I'd have known her better at the time, I would've thought she'd break down or something.

She was a different person then though. We were all different before the war. It was the war that deprived so many people of their childish naivety. Mostly people from the Capitol. Idiots. They think that life and death is just a game- something to be toyed with. Something to be shown to the world. Like it's acceptable to kill them because they're not like you. One thing I've learnt about life and death is that everyone enters and leaves as equals. Nothing can help if you can't think of a way to make it help.

 **Hi! Please review, I would love to hear some feedback and whether to carry this on, or just leave it as it is. If you could read my other stories as well, that would be great!**

 **-Nothing More And Nothing Less**


	2. Hell Had You By The Throat

I feel so empty. Time just passes by without meaning. Nothing gets through to me anymore. Not even the smell of roses, or Peeta's pleading voice. He's recovered so much. I'm happy for him- well I'm trying to be. It's just so hard to feel anything. I sound so selfish. I always was- if you asked anyone else, they'd probably say different. They'd say 'what about when you volunteered?' or 'what about when you defied the Capitol and starting hunting in the woods?'

People always have such stupid arguments. They think they know because they heard a friend of a friend say it, or it was on the news. They think they know me but all they can say is 'Is that Katniss Ever- wait, isn't it Mellark now?' Or something along those lines. I didn't ask for this.

I didn't ask for Prim to die. I never wanted her to die. That's the simple reason I volunteered. Yes it was stupid. But it worked, for a year or so. Then the war happened. And then the worst day of my life. Prim, my little duck, my baby sister, was sent out onto the battlefield because she was training to become a doctor. She was thirteen years old! Surely district 13 must have had trained professionals. Why didn't they send them out? Because maybe then Prim wouldn't have died.

But that's such a pointless argument. Because maybe if Snow wasn't elected as President, the Games would already have been abolished. Maybe the Games would be worse. If Prim hadn't been reaped, would there have even been a war?

I'm so skittish all the time. I'm always looking for an attack, always wondering where the next gun pointed my way will come from. Some people think that in the Games, it just happens, and then after you can forget everything that happened. Well, they're wrong. That's not how it works, although I wish it was. Maybe that's why victors from 6 became morphlings. Because they couldn't deal with it. I'm beginning to think it might help, but Peeta would never allow it.

With the half life of not sleeping and nightmares and screaming in my head and watching the bodies fall and seeing the blood on my hands. And knowing that this was allowed. Not just allowed but broadcasted to all of Panem. Like a game- it was to them, though. No more. I wonder how the people from the Capitol reacted: their beautiful city ripped down and in shreds, their sport gone, people they know starving and filthy like people from 12. Or what's left of them anyway.

Maybe the people in the Capitol are so self absorbed they don't even realise what they did is wrong. It's televised murder. And then to praise a - probably traumatised- kid for killing people. To give them gifts and a house, so you can spy on them and make sure that they never forget what they did and what the Capitol can do. Then we came along. The star crossed lovers from District 12. Faced with an impossible choice. No wonder the Capitol loved us. We were dramatic and romantic. We made our own rules for the Games.

This is what the human race has become. Shouldn't we be proud of ourselves? Watching _kids_ fight to the death, so a select group of people can point and laugh. The majority of the population don't laugh because we were the weak ones. The ones who saw the coffins come back and watched the families wail and scream and deny. Watched them cry and feel sorry, but we could never do anything. But for some reason- some will say love, others stupidity, but I don't care- two teenagers brought it down.

I remember saying to President Snow that the system must be fragile if it can be brought down by a handful of berries. But it wasn't just the berries. It was the emotions of the crowd. The way the Districts had been losing children for years and years. People's children, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandkids. If we could say no, then why couldn't they? That sort of attitude spreads fast, especially if it's two sixteen year olds who say no.

I wonder if that's how we could be described. Or maybe we'll be described as the people who destroyed the Capitol and the Games. I don't care. People can judge us for what they want us to be. I just want Prim.

I'd do it all again for her. I'd do it differently. Run into the Cornucopia in the 74th Hunger Games. Slaughter everyone, even Peeta, before they can go anywhere near me. If Peeta doesn't survive, there would be no rebellion against the Capitol. No war. Just the big, empty house in Victors Village. A big house that only houses 3 people.

It doesn't matter what I do. Because she's dead, and she can't come back. She will never walk through the door. She will never help another patient. I don't know why it's so hard for me to grasps. She's dead. Even the cat knows. Gone.

No 'goodbye', or 'I love you', just gone. The permanent solution to everything. Death. Somehow it had never seemed to be so prominent. The only other time it had ever entered my life before was my father. But I adapted. Life without Prim is hard because I expect her to be in the next room, doing homework, or in the kitchen helping my mother heal someone.

She's gone, too. My mother. She's lucky. That's what I think anyway. She can bury herself in her job, in helping people. I have nothing. I understand what she meant now. When my father died. When she was in a 'blank space'. Because you feel like you're drowning. Like you're drowning in life, because that person has left you. Alone. I always thought I'd be fine by myself, but I didn't understand, then, what alone was. That alone means you have nothing and you are nothing.

Well, that's not true. I have Peeta. But we don't do anything. We just sit in my house. Cook, clean. But nothing has any feeling. I mean, it's a house. Not a _home_. Home is where you grew up, where you could walk through the place blindfolded without bumping into anything. Home is where the heart is, they say. My heart is with Prim and Peeta.

I don't want to be alone. That's why I try to hide my nightmares, because I know how it tortures Peeta. Peeta, the boy with the bread. He's so gentle with me, always has been. Understanding. Peeta is one of the best things that has happened to me. He keeps me sane. Well, as sane as possible. He makes me _want_ to get better, want to talk to him. But I can't. It's like I'm trapped in fog, and when I try to speak, the fog takes my words away. I can still hear him. I can hear him talking to Haymitch and calling Annie to check on her and the baby. He talks to me, even if he thinks I'm not listening. I've head him say that I'm 'away in my own world'. And I suppose I am. But the world is holding me down, and stopping me. It used to protect me, I know that, but now it's killing me.

Maybe my mind has two main commands: save or self destruct. I remember something about fight or flight from school, so maybe I got the messed up version. The resigned version. 'You can't beat it so give up. You tried fighting before, and look what happened'.

It's all muddled, in my head. I know what happened and when, I just don't want to. I mean I do, but some part of me doesn't, and for some reason that's influencing it. Maybe it's the flight part of my brain hiding the memories so I don't have to fight or flight. I learnt about that in school; the brain's reflex action. Stay and fight, or run. I didn't pay that much attention, and why would I need to? If I was in a situation where I needed to run, or fight, it wouldn't be in District 12.

If I hadn't volunteered, I would be working in the mines. The same mines that my father died in. So, I had reasoned, that if I needed to 'fight or flight', it would be useless, because I would be miles underground.

I hate being underground. It makes me feel trapped; like someone has put me in a bottle, and is slowing closing the lid- trapping me inside. It would be horrifying. Something else to add to Snow's face and Peeta's hands around my neck and Prim helping the children and the little girl with the lemon yellow coat being cut down like a weed

Most people don't understand. I don't expect them to. People seem to expect things of me, though. 'She's the Mockingjay'. I was a symbol, a mouthpiece, not the brains. Not the brawn. I was to tug people's hearts, not lead people into battle. I was meant to make people think about what is actually happening in the Capitol- to make them see it from our perspective.

The Mockingjay was meant to die. Fly away, little Mockingjay, so you might live another day. Snow never said it, and no one ever did. But I can hear it, echoing in my head. Twittering around every thought, mocking me. Mocking who I am, and who I became. I became the Girl on Fire, the Mockingjay, Mrs Mellark.

All for one fucking game.

* * *

 **Hi!**

 **I feel like this chapter is a bit all over the place, so if you have any ideas, or see any mistakes please let me know. I would also really love to know what you think, your favourite parts, your least favourite parts, and maybe what you want to see next chapter?**

 **I need a beta, although I don't write regularly, I do sometimes have bursts of inspiration at 3 am, and would like to publish more of these, but since it's 3 am, they usually don't make any sense.**

 **I would like to write for more categories, and would like someone to read over my work before it's published, to improve it and make it better quality. If you're interested please PM me.**

 **Thanks,**

 **Nothing more and nothing less**


End file.
